A few wealthy donors fuel super PACs

By Fredreka Schouten, and Gregory Korte

WASHINGTON
–
Nevada, a general-election battleground, ranks 25th in donations from its residents to presidential candidates in this election. But the state is second in donations to super PACs, fueled by $25 million from a single household — that of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam.

By Kin Cheung, AP

Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson and his wife, not pictured, made a $25 million super PAC donation.

Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson and his wife, not pictured, made a $25 million super PAC donation.

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In all, $27.6 million has flowed from Nevada to super PACs to influence presidential and congressional contests — nearly 12 times the total contributed by Nevadans who have given to presidential candidates in this election.

In six states — Nevada, Wyoming, Arkansas, Texas, Utah and Oklahoma — and Washington, D.C., super PAC contributions have swamped direct donations to presidential campaigns, fed by a handful of tycoons who call those states home, a USA TODAY analysis of federal election data shows.

The concentration of political money in a handful of states illustrates how the free-for-all spending of the 2012 election has changed the campaign fundraising map in ways not seen since post-Watergate laws imposed contribution limits.

Outside spending has topped $113 million in this election, more than four times the amount at this point in the 2008 campaign.

By contrast, three crucial presidential battlegrounds — Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — together account for less than 2% of all super PAC contributions.

The geographic breakdown is a function of where wealthy super PAC givers happen to live, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics.

Investment industry top sector

Individuals and organizations in the securities and investment industry have donated $31 million to super PACs, the most of any sector, Krumholz's group found. Not surprisingly, New York, the nation's financial center, emerges as the No. 4 city in super PAC donations in the USA TODAY analysis.

The huge contributions from a sliver of the nation's population could give those donors a big say in public policy after Election Day, Krumholz said.

"You can't ignore the role that this titan of Nevada industry wields in this cycle," she said of Adelson, whose empire includes casinos in Nevada, Macau and Singapore. "People will court big donors for support, and there's the potential they will view the industries and issues they care about differently."

Adelson's political activity "is a private decision, and he's not looking to have a role in the public debate," his spokesman Ron Reese said.

The four other cities with the most super PAC contributions: Washington, Las Vegas, Dallas and Houston, the analysis shows. Las Vegas, Dallas and Houston together account for more than 30% of all donations to super PACs, propelled largely by contributions from Adelson, Dallas industrialist Harold Simmons and Houston-based home builder Bob Perry.

In President Obama's home base of Illinois, donations to presidential candidates top $20 million. By contrast, $5.6 million has flowed to outside groups, and just 11% went to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing Obama's re-election.

More than a third of all the Illinois donations to super PACs went to Restore Our Future, an independent group helping Republican Mitt Romney.

The state has no "real tradition of big-money people from the private sector being active on the Democratic side," said Kent Redfield, a political scientist at the University of Illinois-Springfield. Corporate executives, he said, appear more comfortable with Romney, who founded and ran a private-equity firm before entering politics.

"Romney may not connect with people in the doughnut shop, but he may connect a lot better with people on corporate boards than Obama does," Redfield said.

New Yorkers are the biggest donors to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, giving almost $9 million of the nearly $52 million it has collected since Jan. 1, 2011, federal records show.

Californians are the biggest supporters of the pro-Obama super PAC, giving $4.9 million, more than half of its money, highlighting the divide between Wall Street interests, who have been giving to Romney, and Obama's supporters in Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

No state has fewer super PAC contributors than North Dakota. The state's residents have donated a grand total of $7,991. Nearly half that figure went to super PACs supporting Texas Rep. Ron Paul's presidential campaign.

Christopher Olson, the CEO of a precious-metals company in Fargo, N.D., said he gave $350 to Revolution PAC to help the group distribute pro-Paul literature. The Illinois-based PAC has run TV ads backing Paul and sells action figures with his likeness.

"Ron Paul is the only consistent and honest person in Washington," Olson said. "Obama and Romney represent Big Government. He represents liberty."

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